Some Edmontonians looking to challenge parking ban tickets

Edmonton Mayor Andrew Knack says five enforcement officers to hand out tickets during residential plowing isn't enough. CTV Edmonton's Jeremy Thompson reports.

This winter season has seen a few thousand tickets issued to drivers in violation of parking bans as city crews work to remove a historic amount of snow from Edmonton streets.

But not all of those fines will be paid.

Greg Brodeur is one of a handful of residents in the Rio Terrace neighbourhood to receive such a ticket, but intends on challenging it, saying the city unfairly fined him for violating a parking ban.

Brodeur said he received his ticket in the early hours of Sunday morning, despite getting a notification saying that his neighbourhood would be plowed on the Friday. The city asks residents to move their vehicles within a 72-hour timeframe of the scheduled plow, or they will receive a ticket. Brodeur also said there were no parking ban signs put up in his neighbourhood.

After contacting the city, he was told to wait until he receives the ticket in the mail from which he can send an email to the city and explain the situation.

“I’m not sure where that’s going to go. I could see why a lot of people are not going to fight this because they don’t want to go through that rigamarole,” Brodeur told CTV News Edmonton. “But $250 to some people is a really big deal and there are no guarantees that they’re going to have the ticket removed.”

Ward Sipiwiyiniwak Coun. Thu Parmar said she received calls from Brodeur and a number of residents about the parking tickets issued in Rio Terrace.

“I was concerned by what I heard and asked administration to look into the circumstances,” Parmar said in an email Thursday. “Decisions around ticket cancellations are made by administration, not by elected officials, and I can’t pre-empt that process.

“That said, I have been clear that fairness and clarity for residents is key.”

Since the city introduced seasonal parking bans a few years ago, ticket totals have varied with the weather.

In the 2022-2023 season, 4,067 tickets were issued. The value of those tickets is more than $1 million.

The next season dipped down to 718 tickets as the city didn’t plow neighbourhood roads that winter.

More than 2,000 parking ban tickets were issued in 2024-2025 with a total value of $557,750.

The city could not supply CTV News Edmonton with a breakdown of how many parking ban tickets are successfully challenged through a city review process, or how many end up in court. An estimate of how much money the city loses out on due to successful challenges was also not available.

In an ideal world, says Mayor Andrew Knack, the city wouldn’t earn any money from parking ban fines because people are following the rules.

“We don’t want to rely on that, we don’t ever want to get into a position where we’re relying on that revenue to fund our snow and ice control program,” said Knack at city hall Thursday.

As council prepares to overhaul the snow clearing budget this summer, Knack suggests adding to the current contingent of five enforcement officers could help reduce ticket challenges.

However, Brodeur says existing officers could be deployed more efficiently.

“Why can’t they ticket ahead of the plows when they’re actually coming?” he said. “It doesn’t make the city look good when they’re going around ticketing, especially in the middle of the night … I think it’s an ineffective use of their time.”